Starry Night

"When I look at the stars I always start dreaming..." Vincent Van Gogh

Van Gogh loved to paint the night sky. He wrote to his sister,

"It often seems to me that the night is even more richly colored than the day, having hues of the most intense violets, blues, and greens. Certain stars are lemon yellow, others have a oink glow, or a green, blue, and forget-me-not brillance....putting little white dots on a blue-black surface is not enough." excerpt from Van Gogh and Friends



I have wanted to try one of Kathy's classroom mural projects the first time I spotted them on her site, but having only three students to color the 30 pages seemed like a daunting task. When she came up with idea of mini murals containing six pages each, I was sold!

Day one: Color the bottom part of the painting

"Unlike most paintings, Van Gogh created this one from his imagination. The hills and the trees are like those in the south of France, where this was painted, but the village church is the kind found in Holland where Vincent grew up. Surprisingly, the one part of the picture that Van Gogh painted from real life is the sky. The moon, the stars and the planet Venus ar in the very positions in which they appeared one evening in the summer of 1888. Low in the sky, Venus shines brighter than the stars."  excerpt from Van Gogh and Friends

We decided to all use the same pens so the colors would be unified, but they each interpreted the original with the picture they had to color in slightly different ways. I can't wait to see what it looks like tomorrow when we finish the top half of the picture!

Day Two: Color the top part of the painting.

T.J is working hard on the top right section of the starry night mini mural.

They did it! Max did the top and bottom panels on the left. Zak did the top and bottom panels in the middle, and T.J did the right top and bottom panels. I love the great colors! Kathy suggested using oil pastels for this mural however the felt tip pens allowed us richer colors and enabled the boys to really color in those tight corners and defined shapes better.
Now to join the panels together and mount it!